{"id":7631,"date":"2025-02-28T18:21:33","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T02:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=7631"},"modified":"2025-02-28T18:21:33","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T02:21:33","slug":"things-glen-found-interesting-volume-493-christianity-stabilizes-in-america-the-truth-about-a-spying-monk-why-denominations-struggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2025\/02\/28\/things-glen-found-interesting-volume-493-christianity-stabilizes-in-america-the-truth-about-a-spying-monk-why-denominations-struggle","title":{"rendered":"Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 493: Christianity stabilizes in America, the truth about a spying monk, &amp; why denominations struggle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4396\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=300%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=768%2C768&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=1200%2C1200&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?w=2048&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?w=1680&amp;ssl=1 1680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\"><\/a>\n\n    On Fridays I share articles\/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my&nbsp;way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Things Glen Found Interesting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list simple-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/26\/us\/christianity-us-religious-study-pew.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Christianity\u2019s Decline in U.S. Appears to Have Halted, Major Study Shows<\/a> (Ruth Graham, New York Times): \u201cAfter years of decline, the Christian population in the United States has been stable for several years, a shift fueled in part by young adults, according to a major new survey from the Pew Research Center. And the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans, which had grown steadily for years, has also leveled off.\u2026 The survey finds that 62 percent of adults in the United States describe themselves as Christians, including 40 percent who identify as Protestant and 19 percent who are Catholic.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/comment.org\/no-longer-i-who-live\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">No Longer I Who Live<\/a> (Anthony David, Comment): \u201cTwo years ago, I was ready to abandon a biography I\u2019d spent years trying to write when a fellow historian threw me a lifeline. The book was about the triple agent Hermann Keller (1905\u20131970), a Benedictine mole embedded by conspirators against Hitler into the upper echelons of the SS. Keller reported not only to the German resistance but also to the Vatican and the British MI6. In the history of espionage, few spies penetrated deeper into enemy&nbsp;ranks.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The article is absolutely fascinating, especially for the detail that before her research Keller was widely regarded as a villain and not a hero. \u201cBy early 2011, I had finished the book on [another guy], which was set to be published in Austria. A few weeks before I was due to return the galleys, I shared them with a monk at the Dormition who had asked to review the manuscript before publication. When he saw what I wrote about Keller, he cautioned me against taking historians at their word. I should talk to someone who knew him before passing judgment.\u201d She did primary research and realized the existing consensus was very wrong. Her discovery resonated with me. The more I read the more skeptical I become of extreme allegations against dead Christians. Virtually every time I dig into something in detail (the history of missions, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the church in Prohibition, etc) I discover that the default understanding of educated people is wrong and predictably so. This isn\u2019t to say all of church history is exemplary \u2014 some events deserve condemnation. But even the bad events usually weren\u2019t as bad as commonly imagined. I find that most Stanford students\u2019 assumptions about the history of the church and of Christians is WAY more negative than justified by the historical record.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/inparticular.substack.com\/p\/what-if-its-just-life\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">what if its just life<\/a> (Kristen Sanders, Substack): \u201cDiscernment is something many Christians unconsciously despise. Many would rather have the rules given to them, without deviation, than choose for themselves. No one wants to be left holding the bag of their own&nbsp;life.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.city-journal.org\/article\/universities-fellow-to-faculty-programs-activists\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">How Universities Get Away With Hiring Radicals<\/a> (John D. Sailer, City Journal): \u201cUsually, a postdoctoral fellowship is just a small step in a scholar\u2019s career. After a fellowship ends, former postdocs apply to competitive positions on the open market. The diversity-focused fellow-to-faculty model modifies this pathway. First, the programs\u2019 administrators select fellows with special attention to how they contribute to diversity. Fellows are then heavily favored for\u2014often guaranteed\u2014tenure-track positions, bypassing a competitive search. It\u2019s a side-door into the faculty lounge.\u2026 Over the last five years, one in 20 tenure-track hires in the UC System were former president\u2019s or chancellor\u2019s postdoctoral fellows.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.graphsaboutreligion.com\/p\/is-distrust-driving-the-rise-in-non\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Is Distrust Driving the Rise in Non-Denominationalism?<\/a> (Ryan Burge, Substack): \u201cNon-denominationalism is predicated on the collapse of institutional trust. Americans, for myriad reasons, do not trust major institutions. Banks, unions, big business, media and government are all viewed with deep skepticism. Nameless and faceless CEOs and bureaucrats are wasting your money and taking your freedom. In religion, there\u2019s a simple solution to this. Kill the denominations. Voila. No more unaccountable head office that wastes your money on projects to spruce up the national headquarters. In a non-denominational church, all the people who decide where the money goes are sitting right next to you in the pew. That\u2019s a whole lot more accountability.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.metropolitanreview.org\/p\/would-you-rather-have-married-young\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Would You Rather Have Married Young?<\/a> (Lillian Fishman, Metropolitan Review): \u201cThis was the first time it crossed my mind that a young woman <em>like us<\/em> \u2014 a knowledge worker, a writer, a leftist \u2014 might regret her independent youth and wish she had married a loving person at a young age. I\u2019d associated this idea with a type of womanhood we considered totally outside of our zone of interest: anti-intellectualism, a belief in the primacy of motherhood. I was blindsided by the suggestion that we might be better people if we were recused from formative independence and struggle. I looked around at my friends and acquaintances, especially the married ones, and wondered if there was any truth in the idea that the years they spent as poor captains of their own ships, unmoored and often lonely, were in fact not remotely necessary or enlightening.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/2025\/02\/faith-science-primer-hypernatural-world-kenneth-keathley-miracles\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Some Miracles Happen Supernaturally. Others Happen \u2018Hypernaturally.\u2019<\/a> (John Van Sloten, Christianity Today): \u201cKeathley defines hypernaturalism as the \u2018extraordinary use of natural law by the God described in the Bible. When God acts hypernaturally, He employs natural law and natural phenomena in an extraordinary way to bring about His will.\u2019\u2026 Perhaps this category helps people hold two opposites together: that the world operates in an empirically explainable way (a more basic definition of providence) and that God occasionally intervenes to accomplish his will (through an exercise of special providence). Hypernaturalism describes one facet of how providence and miracle overlap.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Less Serious Things Which Also Interested\/Amused Glen<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list simple-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/02\/25\/europe\/france-jackpot-stolen-credit-card-scli-intl\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Thieves bought a winning lottery ticket with a stolen credit card. Its owner has offered to split the jackpot <\/a>(Jack Guy and Lisa Klaassen, CNN): \u201c\u2018Without my client\u2019s credit card it would not have been possible to buy the ticket, but without the thieves\u2019 behavior, the ticket wouldn\u2019t have been bought either,\u2019 said Debuisson.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/traversmark\/2025\/02\/20\/a-psychologist-explains-the-science-behind-getting-the-ick\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">A Psychologist Explains The Science Behind Getting \u2018The Ick\u2019<\/a> (Mark Travers, Forbes): \u201cOverall, the ick takes on many different forms. But, simply, it reflects a perceived minor character flaw that becomes impossible to unsee once noticed. Researchers also found that women (75%) were far more likely to experience the ick than men (57%).\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/babylonbee.com\/news\/nineveh-promises-to-repent-as-soon-as-prophet-that-smells-like-whale-barf-leaves-town\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nineveh Promises To Repent As Soon As This Prophet Who Smells Like Whale Barf Leaves Town<\/a> (Babylon Bee)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>Why Do You Send This&nbsp;Email?<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors \u201cwho understood the times and knew what Israel should do\u201d (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>Disclaimer<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey\u2019s agenda and we are not about the elephant\u2019s agenda \u2014 we are about the Lamb\u2019s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass <a href=\"http:\/\/econlog.econlib.org\/archives\/2011\/06\/the_ideological.html\">the ideological Turing test<\/a> and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say \u201cI agree\u201d or \u201cI disagree\u201d until I can say \u201cI understand\u201d) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I\u2019ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent.\n\nAlso, remember that I\u2019m not reporting news \u2014 I\u2019m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There\u2019s a lot happening in the world that\u2019s not making an appearance here because I haven\u2019t found stimulating articles written about it.\n\nIf this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up <a href=\"https:\/\/theglendavis.substack.com\/\">here<\/a>. You can also <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/category\/links\">view the archives<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Fridays I share articles\/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my&nbsp;way. Things Glen Found Interesting Less Serious Things Which Also Interested\/Amused Glen Why Do You Send This&nbsp;Email? In the time \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2025\/02\/28\/things-glen-found-interesting-volume-493-christianity-stabilizes-in-america-the-truth-about-a-spying-monk-why-denominations-struggle\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \u201cThings Glen Found Interesting, Volume 493: Christianity stabilizes in America, the truth about a spying monk, &amp; why denominations struggle\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[131,124,120,160,112,247],"class_list":["post-7631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links","tag-academia","tag-apologetically-interesting","tag-famous-christians","tag-how-the-church-is-perceived","tag-marriage","tag-wisdom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-1Z5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7631"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7633,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7631\/revisions\/7633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}